SBX's floating platform, a modified oil-drilling vessel, was designed for exceptional stability in high winds and storms. Measuring 240 feet wide and 390 feet long, the vessel includes a power plant, bridge and control rooms, living quarters, storage areas, and enough floor space and infrastructure to support the X-band Radar.

The X-band Radar itself, which sits on top of the floating platform, is the largest, most sophisticated phased array, electro-mechanically steered X-band radar in the world.

It consists of thousands of elements driven by transmit/receive (T/R) modules. In the X-band Radar, they provide the full fire control sensor functions for the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system, including search, acquisition, tracking, discrimination and kill assessment.

The SBX component was developed under the direction of the Boeing Company.